In this edition of Listen to This — the premiere of our second season of original interviews with Canada’s most fascinating activists, politicos, and artists! — we talk with Heather Leson and Brian Chick, two of the more senior Canadian coordinators of Crisis Commons, an international online community of people who use their technology skills to […] More »

Industry Minister Tony Clement’s iPod contains 10,452 songs, he told reporters on May 26, most of them transferred from CDs he bought. It’s a widespread practice generally known as “format shifting,” and in Canada, it’s illegal. The minister didn’t shamefacedly admit his crime in an embarrassing gaffe; he called a press conference and announced it […] More »

When the New Brunswick government built a controversial causeway splitting the Petitcodiac River in 1968, Moncton’s 129 km river quickly came to look like something out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (which is how it earned its local nickname, the “Chocolate River“). It didn’t take long for tempers to boil over too: conservationists have […] More »

It may be anticlimactic for those who picture transgenic animals as products of zany laboratory cut ’n pastes, but Canada’s first genetically engineered animal to be raised for food looks just like the ordinary farm pig that shares its DNA. Dubbed “Enviropig,” its creators at the University of Guelph say it’s a boon to the […] More »

Meet shambolic, directionless Mason Dubisee, an author-manqué who has just turned 30 and can’t seem to finish his big novel. Decimated by his cocaine and gambling addictions, he agrees to ghostwrite a love letter for an odd, lovesick man named Warren. When Warren is found dead, the missive becomes a poignant suicide note—and Mason decides […] More »

The Alberta tar sands are a famously bad place to be a migratory bird. Turns out it’s even worse than we thought. From the Toronto Star: A new study says birds are likely dying in oilsands tailings ponds at least 30 times the rate suggested by industry and government. […] The 14-year median, including raptors, […] More »

When she isn’t playing jazz organ in Rio de Janeiro or running her own jam session during the Montreal International Jazz Festival, musician Vanessa Rodrigues can usually be found making her own pickles. The Montreal-based musician has her plate full with music projects, but high on her list of priorities is food—the growing of, the […] More »

Shell Canada’s operations in Alberta’s oil sands are clean and green, and simply the victim of nasty rumours spread by environmentalists trying to tar the company’s reputation. That is, if you believe the “six-week Canwest special information feature on climate change, in partnership with Shell Canada.” Canada’s largest media company teamed up with the oil […] More »

He was branded Canada’s very own Black Panther. In 2004, Gary Freeman, born Joseph Pannell, was arrested by Toronto police at gunpoint outside of his workplace, the Toronto Reference Library. It turned out that this friendly library assistant, father, and husband was harbouring a secret past. In Chicago in 1969, he had shot a cop […] More »

Sure, it’s easy to be disenchanted with society: its corporate lies, political impotence, and information overload. The hunt for authenticity “has become the spiritual quest of our time,” Andrew Potter, famed co-author of The Rebel Sell, writes in his new book, The Authenticity Hoax. A way to escape all we believe to be fake and […] More »

For years, Joel Theriault has waged a losing battle against pesticide spraying in Northern Ontario forests. He’s made enemies in the logging business, the Ministry of Natural Resources—and even among his fellow environmentalists. What keeps him going? On a chilly afternoon in mid-June 2009, bush-pilot-turned-environmental-activist Joel Theriault is once again flying over the deforested landscape […] More »